This week, Ralph welcomes union activist and director of the Nurses Professional Organization, Kay Tillow, who tells us how those ads Joe Namath does shilling for Medicare (dis)Advantage are misleading you. And citizen activist, Evan Weissman, stops by to explain how he and his cohorts in the Denver area have found a way to make civics fun with an approach they call “Warm Cookies of the Revolution.”
Kay Tillow is a union activist and executive director of the Nurses Professional Organization. She also organizes “Unions for Single Payer Health Care,” to push and empower labor unions to make single-payer a priority.
“In the end, you will end up paying more (with Medicare Advantage) once you get sick. And that’s of course how the program is designed. When you’re healthy and they can make money off of you, they get money from Medicare.”
Kay Tillow, Unions for Single Payer Health Care
“We need to expose the fact that the Affordable Care Act cannot be fixed, because inherent in it is this private for-profit insurance rip-off that continues to deny care and keeps us from getting to a system where our money actually goes for care instead of to the insurance companies.”
Kay Tillow, Unions for Single Payer Health Care
“Joe Namath should be ashamed of himself. He’s supposed to be avoiding sacks. And instead, he’s sacking millions of seniors.”
Ralph Nader
“We need to expose the fact that the Affordable Care Act cannot be fixed, because inherent in it is this private for-profit insurance rip-off that continues to deny care and keeps us from getting to a system where our money actually goes for care instead of to the insurance companies.”
Kay Tillow, Unions for Single Payer Health Care
“That’s the key point in private health insurance. They make money by denying you care. Other companies make money by selling you stuff. But they make more money by denying you care and pocketing the premiums.”
Ralph Nader
“Congresswoman Jayapal announced in January that she was going to reintroduce the single-payer bill that she introduced two years ago. Here we are in the beginning of March and still, no bill. Why is there no bill, Congresswoman Japayal? She has a very good answer, which she hasn’t made public… the answer is Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi and the leadership in the House telling the rank and file Democrats ‘Focus on expanding Obamacare with all its refusal to control costs and its intricate, mind-numbing complexity, and do not focus on single payer.’”
Ralph Nader
Evan Weissman is the founding director of “Warm Cookies of the Revolution,” a Civic Health Club that does the “weird and important work” of engaging folks in Denver to discuss and debate and organize and act around the community issues that affect their daily lives.
“We say ‘Okay…our competition is Netflix. It is the NFL. It is church. It is shopping. But instead of pushing them away and shaming people, we say alright, cool. Let’s do that. Let’s do the thing you like, and we’ll add in a civic element.”
Evan Weissman, founder of Warm Cookies of the Revolution
“We think of civic life as– what is it that we all own, collectively? And how do we take care of it? And who’s involved in that process? So, we make sure that it’s not a spectator sport.
Evan Weissman, founder of Warm Cookies of the Revolution
“It Ain’t So, Joe!”